It was some time before Zack returned indoors, and I could see from his manner that Terrell’s story had tugged at his heartstrings. Zack’s heart is of a romantic nature, and the McCrady-Moonstone romance inevitably had stirred the depths of his soul. I, for one, dread the day Zack hoists Mrs. Zack over the threshold, for he and I pretty much lead the perfect bachelor life. Late-night action movies? Check. Pizza and pie at all hours of the day or night? Check. Dishes piling up in the sink? Check. Garbage bags collecting in the back garden? Check. These last two items are of particular interest to me, for dirty dishes and garbage attracts mice, and a home without mice is a boring home for any feline worth his or her salt.
For some moments, Zack sat on the couch next to me with a goofy smile on his face and staring before him with non-seeing eyes. Finally he returned to the world of the conscious and murmured a single word.
“Bluebell.”
I gazed up at him with sleepy eyes awaiting further developments, but this seemed as far as his eloquence would go, and as I drifted back to sleep, I didn’t give the matter further thought.
It must have been well past midnight when I awoke. Zack had gone to bed and I was alone in the living room. Stretching, I became aware of a pair of eyes staring intently in my direction from the sliding patio doors. Squinting, I recognized them as Dana’s, and in them I read an urgent desire to have speech with me.
6
The FSA Rears its Ugly Head
Ambling over to the kitchen, I slipped out through the pet door and onto the small patio. Dana was sitting on the wooden bench Zack had once placed there for purposes of smoking a gasper—since then he’s quit smoking but the bench has remained and is now one my favorite haunts.
“What’s up?” I said in my most casual voice. I don’t entertain female visitors as a rule and the fact that this Siamese had come all the way down for a visit affected me strangely. I guess that’s me in a nutshelclass="underline" the strong yet surprisingly diffident male.
“They’ve found the body,” she said, and didn’t even have to explain which body she was talking about. I understood straightaway.
“I know,” I said. “Floating in the pond, right?”
“Right.” She shivered visibly. “Gruesome, isn’t it?”
I reflected.“Yes, but also poetic in a way.”
She gave me an odd look.“How can murder be poetic?”
“I don’t know. There’s just something about being gently laid to rest in a watery grave, swans gliding gracefully across the surface, water lilies gently floating by, dragonflies writing your name across the sky one last time…” I paused, for I could see that I’d failed to grip the attention of my audience of one. “What is it?”
She leaned in and whispered,“Don’t look now but I think we’re being watched.”
The suave and astute secret agent would now, of course, casually glance over his shoulder, carelessly flicking a speck of dust off his tail, and spot the intruder in a single glance. But since I’m neither suave nor astute I simply jerked my head around and hissed, “Where? Where is he?”
“Oh, my God,” said Dana, annoyed. “You really have a lot to learn, haven’t you? I was just testing you, you silly tabby.”
I was disappointed and failed to hide it.“So, there’s no one there? You were just joshing me?”
“I was not, as you put it, joshing you, Tom. As I said, I was testing you. There’s a difference.”
This puzzled me. Testing me? What for? And I said as much.
She smiled, and for the first time I noticed something different about Dana. I had always thought her gorgeous as far as physical appearance goes, but her incessant flow of conversation tended to spoil whatever attraction I’d ever felt towards her. Hers was, in other words, not a butt I would ever have volunteered to sniff. But now, all of a sudden, it seemed as if she had dropped the charade of the rather vapid, addle-brained bombshell and was looking at me with the gleam of keen intelligence in her lovely amber eyes.
“There’s something we’ve been meaning to tell you for a long time, Tom, but we didn’t feel you were quite ready yet. Now, though, we think you are.”
“We? Who’s we?”
She cleared her throat and swelled a bit, as one will when on the verge of imparting some truly important information.
“No, wait,” I said, smiling. “Is this about Stevie and that mouse again? Just tell him all’s well as far as I’m concerned.” She opened her mouth to speak but I held up a paw. “I confess I was mad at the time. And who wouldn’t be? I had marked that mouse for my own when Stevie suddenly swooped in and grabbed it. Right from under my nose. Not fair, I felt. Not playing the game. But now I realize the poor fella was probably hungry. Father Sam must be stinting on kibble, I guess. So tell him all is forgiven and forgotten. Clean slate. How’s that?”
I must confess I was feeling pretty good about myself. I’m not much of a Christian cat, but all that jazz about turning the other whisker suddenly sounded very plausible to me. Then something Dana said made me realize that once again I’d failed to grip my audience’s attention.
“Can you put a sock in it for just one minute?” she said. “This isn’t about Stevie and it most certainly isn’t about some mouse he allegedly swiped.”
“He did swipe it,” I mumbled. “Nothing alleged about it.”
“That’s fine. Now will you listen?”
I said I would, and even this seemed to irk her so I made a gesture of locking my lips and throwing away the key.
She shook her head.“I don’t know whether this is such a good idea after all,” she said. “And if it was up to me…”
“If what was up to you?” I said, having forgotten my promise to shut it.
She ignored me, and went on.“But since it isn’t…” She seemed to steel herself and turned those amber eyes on me. I don’t mind telling you it disconcerted me somewhat. You don’t see all that many Persian cats with amber eyes, blue being more in fashion with the breed. “Have you ever heard about the FSA?”
7
Remarkable Revelations
I assured her I hadn’t heard of the FSA, and added that if this was some hot new brand of cat food, she could sign me up immediately. I’m always up for testing new cat food. “I’m your man,” I said in conclusion, after giving her my candid opinion on Whiskas, Hill’s, Felix, Friskies, Go Cat, Purina, Gourmetand Sheba. A scorching look from my companion made me cut short my lecture on the pros and cons of cat food, though.
“FSA stands for the Feline Security Agency, an espionage agency run by cats and dealing particularly with matters of—”
“You’re a spy?” I said, surprised and excited.
“Yes, I’m a spy,” she said. “Now if you will let me finish…”
“You mean like James Bond and stuff? Top-secret missions and highly classified information and security clearance and shifty-eyed villainous psychopathic madmen and—”
“Yes, yes, yes!” she said, annoyed. “God! I don’t know anyone like you for talking.”
I considered this a compliment and I said so, though I had the distinct impression that’s not the way she’d intended it.
“Now the FSA is not an ordinary intelligence agency,” she went on.